Developing Plans for Eden Farm at Chatham University.

Eden Hall Farm, formerly a retreat center for women who worked for Pittsburgh’s Heinz plant, was given to Chatham University June 1, 2008.  Within the last year, Chatham administration, faculty, and students have worked to gather information, collect ideas, and develop a plan for the use of this land.  With about 100 arable acres and greater areas of old fields and woodlands (including an old orchard), and surrounded by suburbs, this land presents significant management challenges to a university with a history as an urban liberal arts college on a 30 acre arboretum campus.  However, the university has begun land use with an organic gardening class, community work and pick program, and small research plots for suburban landscaping and lawn research.  While we continue to decide the greater role of this land for the university and search for a dean of a school of sustainability, we also ask the larger question: what research can and should be done from beyond the land grant system?  What niches are unexplored, and which ones might prove financially viable?  As the alma mater of Rachel Carson, Chatham has some obligations to environmental sustainability, and a desire to make good use of a generous gift.